Apocalyptic and intense, that can’t be good. But just as Tilda was about to go off on a negative tangent, Lizzie countered with a more hopeful observation. “But Tilly hangs out with the dance kids, too, and they’re pretty smart. They study a lot.”
“Oh, good. Tilly is a good student,” Tilda responded.
“Uh-huh.”
It went on like this until Lizzie went home. One comment was encouraging, another discouraging, until Tilda figuratively threw up her arms and realized if she wanted reassurance, she would have to go see Tilly for herself.
But for now she was here in Brooklyn, following the directions she had written down before she left home. Turning off Metropolitan Avenue, she took a deep breath and walked, with purpose (not entirely sure what that purpose would lead to) into the Backdoor Gallery. The walls were covered with paintings that looked like photos or photos that looked like paintings, she couldn’t tell. But she was sure of the paintings she saw of island scenes, both vibrant and sad, clear-eyed yet conveying a sense of loss, like a lost Eden maybe. These were the same as the ones she had seen in the Village.
A thin woman with angular features and severe bangs began walking toward her. Then Tilda noticed another woman in the far end of the gallery whose back was turned. She was leaning over a table with a canvas stretched out in front of her. When the woman stood up, Tilda saw her toss her auburn hair as if to shake it away from her face in order to get a better view of the image in front of her. The thin woman approached, but before she could say a word, Tilda quickly turned and walked out. It was Amanda—and Tilda couldn’t face her.
“Shit,” she said, walking briskly away, her sense of purpose gone. “What a chicken shit.”
She walked a few blocks before going into a coffee shop, or coffee bar, or whatever they were called in Brooklyn. The shop was full of people in their twenties, men with beards and women with long straight hair, all of them texting or working on computers. She had a hard time trying to imagine her parents in this place. All the black-and-white photographs in all the family albums seemed to have been taken in a distant land, long ago. Not here.
She sat at a corner table in the back facing the wall and waited for her server, or barista, no doubt.
What was she doing here? Seeing her old home? Where her parents had lived? That had been a ruse from the beginning. No, she had come to find Amanda, and when she did, she left. What was that all about?
I found her and I chickened out, afraid she’d be furious with me for butting in. She continued fuming over her behavior until she heard the waitress coming up behind her. Tilda was about to order a cup of coffee—or maybe a double shot of espresso would be better. But when Tilda looked up, it wasn’t the waitress. It was Amanda, with a perplexed look on her face.
“What are you doing here?” Amanda asked.
Tilda wondered for a moment if Amanda hadn’t seen her earlier. Maybe this was another crazy coincidence. Maybe Amanda just happened in and had never seen Tilda turn and run from the gallery. Then she realized this notion for the fantasy it was.
Tilda felt a surge run through her body from her stomach up to her lungs. Flight. That was what she wanted, not confrontation. Confused and embarrassed, Tilda had nowhere to hide, and Amanda was there, in the coffee shop, wanting an explanation.
In the midst of her embarrassment at being caught snooping, she was suddenly calm. Better own up. Simple as that.
“Please, sit down, Amanda,” she said, pulling out a chair.
Over coffee, Tilda tried to answer Amanda’s question. “Darren came over and asked me to watch Lizzie when you first left. He’s been frantic. It’s Darren and Lizzie, Amanda. I’ve known Lizzie since she was born. I’m concerned.”
Amanda listened, her alarm growing. “I don’t know what to say. Have you been tracking me, for them?”
“No,” said Tilda. “It’s not like that.” She explained how she’d first seen her in the Village and her uncanny feeling that it was meant to be. “It was too much of a coincidence just to let it go. I know it sounds weird, but I almost felt as though I was supposed to find you.”
Amanda, who wasn’t adverse to notions of fate, nevertheless did not seem too satisfied with this answer. “Did you tell Darren you had seen me?”
Tilda shook her head.
“You could have. He could have taken it from there, just as you did, dig a little deeper. That’s how you were led to Brooklyn, isn’t it? Why haven’t you told him?”
Tilda was thrown completely off-balance. Why had she taken this on herself? Her reasons now seemed flimsy.
“I don’t know. I suppose I wanted to make sure you were all right, to protect you—and Darren and Lizzie—from what might follow. But honestly, I guess I hadn’t really thought it through.”
“Protect me? Them? Why on earth is that your role? Isn’t it really just curiosity then?” Amanda asked.
“That makes it sound like prying, nosing around in other people’s business, being an old busybody. If that’s it, then I apologize. I didn’t mean any harm. I was concerned, that’s all.”
Amanda was silent, letting Tilda’s words hang in the air. Meanwhile Tilda was stung by the notion that she was a busybody. That seemed to be the verdict that was sticking.
“Maybe I should have told Darren,” Tilda said. “He’s sick with worry. He may be suspicious, but I don’t know if he knows about Emile, and I don’t think I should be the one to tell him.”
“Keep Emile out of it. You don’t know a thing about him.”
This triggered a rapid response from Tilda, who said more than she even realized she knew.
“I know more than you think. He’s an artist, a hyperrealist, from Saint Lucia. He’s been in this country exhibiting his work for ten years. I know he lives in Williamsburg. I know the galleries where he exhibits, I know you represent him, and I know . . .” Here Tilda stopped for a second, and then, what the hell, continued, “And I know you live with him.”
Then she stopped, half expecting Amanda to either jump up out of her chair and strangle her or to storm out. But she did neither. She sat quietly and looked Tilda in the eye.
“I guess this is what happens when an old woman has nothing to do but sit home and google. This sounds all the world like stalking. Don’t you have anything better to do with all that time on your hands?”
Tilda took this like a punch in the gut. “Oh,” was all she managed.
Seeing Tilda’s reaction, Amanda shifted her gaze away and bit her lip. Then, turning back to face her, she said, “I’m sorry, Tilda. I shouldn’t have . . . after everything you’ve been through.”
Tilda knew what was coming next, and she wasn’t sure how she would handle it.
“Harold, I mean. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Tilda put her elbow on the table, her hand to her head, took a deep breath, and let it go. She distinctly felt a headache coming on, right behind her eyes, which were suddenly very tired. She put down her arm and looked at Amanda.
“Forget about me and my motives for a minute. What about your family, Amanda? They’re hurting, especially Darren. You’ve got to care.”
Amanda was quiet, reflecting, Tilda thought, and maybe letting her guard down a little.
“I know I’m causing them pain, but I can’t go back,” she said. “And I can’t just call, not yet. But I will, honestly. I just need more time.”
She took a sip of coffee. Tilda didn’t say anything.
Amanda put her cup down. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Half the time, I want to run home, but the rest of the time I feel as though I’m living the life I was meant to live. You can’t know what it feels like to live every day as though it should have been different. And it isn’t that I don’t love them. Lizzie? My God, I’d die for her, gladly, but what about me? I want my life. How many more years do I have? And then what? Lizzie goes off to college, and I’m struck with dreams of what might have been?”
She stopped to look at Tilda, who sensed she want
ed to say more.
I’m in it now, so what the hell, she thought. “What about Emile?” she asked. “Is this for real? For the long haul?”
Amanda glared at Tilda, who thought the conversation was over. Continuing to stare, Amanda finally answered, “Do you think you could understand? Why I’m doing this? Can you grasp the sense of how empty I’ve felt, for so long, and that now I have a new feeling, of a great connection with this man? I met him in the city when I was having drinks with some old friends from my days at the Art Students League. He is such a powerful presence, inside and out. He exudes strength, but he is as kind and patient as anyone I’ve ever known.”
“You have that with Darren,” Tilda blurted out.
“Darren is a good man, a good husband and father, but it’s not the same. And Emile isn’t taking any of this lightly. He knows I have some things I have to work out. He’s giving me space to do that. And, I . . . I’m enormously attracted to him. There’s a pull there that . . .”
“You don’t have to . . . I don’t need to know.”
“Oh, please, Tilda. You asked. Surely you get that there’s more to this than just playing around. I’m passionately drawn to this man. I don’t feel whole when I’m not with him, and when I am, I’m completely distracted. We can’t make it through dinner, we’re that crazy for each other.”
“Amanda, you’re talking about sex. It’s not a mystery. It’s sex. Do you wreck your family for it?”
“So you’ve never felt this way, about anyone? Then I feel sorry for you, because I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
“You’re assuming a lot that you don’t know anything about. You think that because I’m old, I don’t know about passion?”
Amanda shook her head. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about—not this kind of passion.”
“Please. Of course I do. I was young once, but by your age I guess I was fortunate. I was satisfied. I didn’t have a sense that life was passing me by. I felt that Harold and I were going along together, that whatever happened, we’d have each other. But that didn’t happen either, did it?”
“I’m so sorry, Tilda. Really, I am. But don’t assume that because you’ve never been in my situation that I’m throwing everything away for sex. Give me some credit.”
Tilda nodded. It was true. They were both making assumptions and coming up with empty judgments, solving nothing.
“I’m sorry, too,” Tilda said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was trying to get out of myself, and when Darren came by, I was able to help, something I hadn’t been able to do for myself—or for anyone for that matter.”
“But what about your family, Laura and Tilly? You’re so close to them.”
Tilda drew a deep breath. “They’re fine, really. Everything is fine. Just forgive an old woman with too much time on her hands, as you said. Look, Amanda. This is your business, yours and Darren’s—and Emile’s. I’m not passing judgment, honestly. Or I don’t mean to. Maybe that’s more honest. You’ve said you need more time, so that means to me that you haven’t closed any doors.”
Amanda nodded and agreed. And that was how they left it.
Shaken and tired, Tilda retraced her steps to the subway, then to Grand Central. On the train home, as the sun faded and the lights in the train came on suddenly, she felt her familiar dark mood descend. She missed Harold to her bones. She wanted to put her head on his chest and tell him what a fool she was. He would stroke her hair and say something kind while defusing her self-pity. “You’re a fool, but you’re my fool, and I love you.” That was what they did for one another, especially as the years mounted. They gave each other a safe harbor. Each was home to the other. And now that home had been torn away, as though in a violent, unpredictable storm.
Sitting on the train among the other passengers, her calm exterior not betraying her inner turmoil, she had never been more alone. No one knows what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, she thought. She watched the young mothers tending to their children, older women reading books or staring straight ahead, a man in a suit speaking into his phone, issuing orders just loudly enough so that everyone would know he was someone’s superior. Tilda was set apart from them, yes, but she knew what held them together. They too would have their dark days. No one escapes, and now it’s my turn.
As soon as she got home, Tilda tossed her bag on the nearest chair and called Bev to reveal the entire Amanda encounter. Bev took it all in without much pushback, just letting Tilda talk, even though Tilda was certain Bev had plenty to say.
The most forceful thing Bev said was also the truest. “You’ve involved yourself, and now this thing is going to eat at you. Every day that passes, the gnawing will get a little stronger.”
Chapter Five
GREETING YOURSELF ARRIVING
About a week and a half later, Tilda turned the calendar page to November. She sat at her desk as the late morning sun cast its weak light on her papers: bills and assorted correspondence she had put off answering until completing all the paperwork associated with Harold’s death. Who knew the furious bureaucracy a death could unleash? Now here she was, also having to face what she had been dreading most: the holidays and short, dark days. She knew that everyone in her inner circle would be worrying about her and extending invitations. The thought of going anywhere, being with anyone, even Laura and Tilly, was painful. All she wanted to do was pull the covers over her head and emerge in the spring, like some hibernating bear.
Things between her and Tilly were thawing just as the wind was turning colder, but they still weren’t back to where they had been when Tilda, the proud grandmother, would get phone calls and texts from her granddaughter. Tilly was polite but distant. The Shabbat dinner had been a turning point. That was true. Tilly didn’t run off and even engaged in some conversation, all very light and superficial, though. Tilda didn’t push or probe. Outwardly Tilly seemed fine, but Tilda still sensed something hidden in her behavior, the way kids act sometimes around adults, as though they have another life that doesn’t include anyone over their own age. Maybe this was to be expected, but Tilda couldn’t shake her intuition that appearances were cloaking a less favorable story. No, not intuition, she told herself. Just worry, maybe just worry, nothing more.
And then there was Darren. He had come to rely on Tilda, to appreciate her growing relationship with Lizzie. Absent now for over three weeks, Amanda hadn’t yet fulfilled her promise to call home, and Tilda was burdened by the knowledge she couldn’t share with Darren. Lizzie was still certain her mother would come home in due time, but Tilda thought Lizzie was beginning to grow a little sullen. A preternaturally cheerful girl, her glow was beginning to fade.
These problems, other people’s problems, were heaped on top of Tilda’s still too-raw emotions. She would think she was handling things well and then a scent of aftershave, fresh and clean, like Harold’s, would catch her attention, a tune would play in the background, a stranger in the store would bear a strong resemblance, and she would become undone. One day in the CVS on Waterton, she actually followed a man around the corners of the aisles, trying to get a better look at him. Of course she knew it wasn’t Harold, but it would have been enough just to be in the presence of someone who looked like him. When the stranger turned toward her as though wondering why she was following him, Tilda was mortified. There was no comfort in this man’s presence at all, just humiliation. She ran out of the store and sat in her car sobbing, waiting until she was composed enough to drive home. Emotions were tricky, she had come to understand. They could change in a heartbeat.
Checking emails, she saw her sister Barbara’s message, asking why Tilda hadn’t returned any of her phone calls. Time to face the music, Tilda thought before hitting her sister’s number on the phone.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sister. She did, and they had always been close—they still spoke every few weeks—but the truth was that Tilda didn’t want to talk to anyone, and she knew this phone call would come wi
th an invitation.
Two minutes into the conversation, Barbara asked, “Why don’t you come for Thanksgiving? The change will do you good, and you know the weather will be better. It’s perfect in Phoenix now, right on through, well, until summer.”
Tilda wanted to tell her baby sister (younger by four years) that she loved the Grand Canyon and Sedona, but other than that, she wasn’t a fan. She didn’t understand how Barbara could live there. Tilda may have suffered from sun deprivation from November to March in Connecticut, but if Arizona was the answer, she’d take depression. But she knew this wasn’t the time for this familiar diatribe, and she knew Barbara was happy there with Mike, her dependable and loving husband, and with her two grown sons, Jake and Nate, nearby. Instead she told Barbara she would stay put. “You know I can’t leave Laura this year, and I want to be with Tilly and Mark. You can understand, right, Barbs?” Off course Barbara would understand, even if Tilda weren’t being completely honest. She just wanted Thanksgiving to disappear.
“Hey, I was in the old neighborhood not long ago,” she said, changing the subject. “You wouldn’t recognize it.”
“I wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I was a baby when we left.”
Of course that was true. “Yes, that’s right.”
Brooklyn may have been their parents’ home and where the sisters were born, but they’d been raised in an apartment on Miami Beach, another area neither would recognize today. South Beach in those days was rundown, and rent was cheap. Two blocks off Ocean Drive, not far from Nikki Beach, the Marrone family lived in the Neptune Arms. They had a sprawling, hot, third-floor apartment where in the summers their mother, Maria, kept the lights off, the windows open, and the fans on. If they were lucky, they’d catch an ocean breeze that made the heat bearable. Tilda and Barbara shared a bedroom and slept in cotton underwear on cotton sheets, waiting for the fan to rotate in their direction for a little relief.
Their neighbors were Jewish, mostly retired, from New York, and their grandchildren only visited in the winter. Tilda and Barbara waited each year for the kids to arrive so they’d have built-in playmates for daily outings to the beach.
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